Netdev 0x16 venue

Background P4 has gained industry-wide acceptance as a datapath language and has been a subject of many discussions in the community over the last few years, see [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]:

Due to the industry takeoff of P4 we are putting resources to make it real for the Linux kernel. Effort to write code has been going on for a few months and we hope to release the code in this workshop.

Some of the stated P4TC goals are:

1) Offloading entirely to P4-capable hardware with skip_sw. 2) Running entirely in software infrastructures (VMs, baremetal, containers) with skip_hw. 3) Split setup - where some of the P4 program control and pipeline is in software and some is in hardware (using a mix of skip_sw and skip_hw). 4) Running multiple independent P4 programs across multiple independent hardware and/or software (using tc filter infrastructure). 5) Independence from changing any kernel code with introduction of a new P4 program (achieved via “scriptability”).

References

[1] Matty Kadosh, “P4 Offload”, TC Workshop, Netdev conference 2.2, 2017 https://legacy.netdevconf.info/2.2/slides/salim-tc-workshop04.pdf

[2] Prem Jonnalagadda, “Mapping tc to P4”, TC Workshop, Netdev conference 2.2, 2017 https://legacy.netdevconf.info/2.2/slides/salim-tc-workshop06.pdf

[3]Jamal Hadi Salim, “What P4 Can Learn From Linux Traffic Control”, proceedings of ONF 5th P4 Workshop, 2018 https://opennetworking.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jamal_Salim.pdf

[4] Many speakers, TC P4 workshop, Intel, Santa Clara, 2018 https://files.netdevconf.info/d/5aa8c0ca61ea4e96bb46/

[5] Antonin Bas and R. Krishnamoorthy. “Instrumenting P4 in the Kernel”, TC Workshop, Netdev conference 0x12, 2018 https://www.files.netdevconf.info/d/9535fba900604dcd9c93/files/?p=/Instrumenting%20P4%20in%20the%20Linux%20kernel.pdf

[6] Marian Pritsak and Matty Kadosh, “P4 Compiler Backend for TC”, Netdev conference 0x13, 2019 https://legacy.netdevconf.info/0x13/session.html?p4-compiler-backend-for-tc